Fan Mount: The Cabbage Gatherers

Camille Pissarro

ca. 1878–79 · Gouache on silk · European Paintings

This is one of many painted fans that Pissarro began to produce with the encouragement of Degas, who envisioned a room devoted to fans at the 1879 Impressionist exhibition. While Degas favored designs showing urban entertainment, Pissarro opted for rural subjects. Here, peasant women in bright kerchiefs harvest cabbages and tend the fields. The work was among the first by the artist to be acquired by an American. Louisine Elder (later Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer) bought it in the late 1870s, along with a Degas and a Monet, launching her pioneering collection of Impressionist pictures.

Artist

Camille Pissarro

Date

ca. 1878–79

Medium

Gouache on silk

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, Leonora Brenauer Bequest, in memory of her father, Joseph B. Brenauer, 1994